joining us now is former chief economist for vice president biden, jared bernstein. he's at the center of budget and policies. jim pazakukas is with the american institute and cnbc. jimmy p., what about income inequality. there's a lot of studies out there and they show in the last 20 or 30 years that hasn't happened. that's not true. it's a bogus issue. >> i don't want to have study versus counter study. income inequality, the top 90% and 10% have increased. a lot of disputes about how high inequality has gone. the president fears all of the statistics about income inequality. there is no evidence that, a, income inequality hurts income and, b, there's no evidence that income inequality has led to the middle class stagnation. you don't have to look at the studies. there's a country that's been running the obama playbook for 20 years. it's tough to fire people. that country is called japan. how has their economy done the past 20 years, terrible. that's the obamanomics there. >> what do you think of jim p.'s challenge? >> i think that the issue that you're missing the